Evening, September 5

Some things in nature must remain a mystery to the most intelligent
and enterprising investigators. Human knowledge has bounds beyond
which it cannot pass. Universal knowledge is for God alone. If this
be so in the things which are seen and temporal, I may rest assured
that it is even more so in matters spiritual and eternal. Why, then,
have I been torturing my brain with speculations as to destiny and
will, fixed fate, and human responsibility? These deep and dark truths
I am no more able to comprehend than to find out the depth which coucheth
beneath, from which old ocean draws her watery stores. Why am I so
curious to know the reason of my Lord’s providences, the motive of his actions, the design of his visitations?
Shall I ever be able to clasp the sun in my fist, and hold the universe
in my palm? yet these are as a drop of a bucket compared with the
Lord my God. Let me not strive to understand the infinite, but spend
my strength in love. What I cannot gain by intellect I can possess
by affection, and let that suffice me. I cannot penetrate the heart
of the sea, but I can enjoy the healthful breezes which sweep over
its bosom, and I can sail over its blue waves with propitious winds.
If I could enter the springs of the sea, the feat would serve no useful
purpose either to myself or to others, it would not save the sinking
bark, or give back the drowned mariner to his weeping wife and children;
neither would my solving deep mysteries avail me a single whit, for
the least love to God, and the simplest act of obedience to him, are
better than the profoundest knowledge. My Lord, I leave the infinite
to thee, and pray thee to put far from me such a love for the tree
of knowledge as might keep me from the tree of life.